


Matters of Record

by thereinafter (isyche)



Series: Matters of Record [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Humor, Obedience, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 09:51:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15927965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyche/pseuds/thereinafter
Summary: In which Alistair is a willing but terrible desk and a better canvas.





	Matters of Record

He’s half asleep when Tamar comes in, bringing the dull glow of the oil lamp she reads by. The little sounds of her sorting out her things are growing familiar.

“Hold still, can you?” She pokes him. “I need something to write on.”

“Go ahead,” he says without opening his eyes, and stretches, feeling the grass by his toes. Her blankets are short. He still hasn’t thought to bring one of his, and maybe she doesn’t want him moving things in, he doesn’t know. He’s still astonished to be there himself.

She lays something on his back, probably that book she writes in, and settles beside him. The book shifts with the little movements of her hand as the pen scratches. After a few minutes, she chuckles.

"What are you writing?" he asks sleepily.

“Just about what’s happened lately.”

“But what’s funny? Come on, keep your desk entertained.”

_“15 Kingsway. Still in the foothills of the Frostbacks,”_ she reads in an undertone. _“It's chilly for early autumn, according to the others. Supplies holding up well. No further darkspawn encounters. On the whole, uneventful. At least in terms of the fight. But in other terms, it turns out Alistair is surprisingly—"_

Now he opens his eyes. “Wait. I’m what?” All he can see is brown tent wall. He almost turns toward her, but remembers to hold still.

“You want to hear this or not?”

“Well, obviously, now,” he says. “Surprisingly what?”

“Er, _surprisingly diverting in himself, I’m finding_.” She leans into him.

His mind helpfully throws up a variety of images of what she’s talking about. His face feels hot. "Oh. Am I?"

“Looks like a matter of record. Hmm. _And exceptional at taking direction in various contexts_ —”

The blush has probably spread to his entire body. He tries to fight it but there’s a tingle of satisfaction there, too. Then he remembers something she said before. "Didn’t you say you write those for your _descendants_?"

"Tradition,” she says, pen scratching again. “Ancestors, memories, all that. But the Shaperate won’t have me now, so it’ll have to be the Wardens. Think of all the future Wardens who will benefit—”

He almost sits up at this, forces himself back down.

She laughs louder. “Don’t spill ink in my bed!"

She was joking. _Obviously, you idiot._ He relaxes, but twists to look at her. “You’re horrifying. I’m horrified.”

“I think they’ll need more details.” Her face is in half-shadow, the lamp behind her haloing it. She points the quill at him and grins.

“My head’s turning. I may faint.”

“Go on, then.” She waves the page back and forth. “One of my tutors was a fiend for five-part Ortan-period lyric verse. Maybe an ode to your many fine qualities.”

At this, he pulls the blanket up over his head and laughs. “Stop! I surrender.”

“All these sterling attractions and yet hopeless as a desk,” she declares. “Don’t think this is over.”

But she sets the book aside and pushes under the blanket, curling into his arms. He breathes in the campfire smoke from her watch and the green smell of broken grass stems under them.

She says, “You even had those village girls fighting over bringing you water today. Well, you and Zevran.”

He’s distracted by the warmth of her through the thin shirt she’s wearing, has no idea what she means at first. “What?” Then he recalls Zevran being ridiculous while she negotiated for the food. “Oh, at the market with the cheeses? … Really?”

She brings her voice down again, says, “I almost wanted to put in a prior claim of discovery. Write my name on you, or something.”

There’s a note of mirth still in her voice. She’s probably not serious. Is she? Do people do that?

He doesn’t know, and the Chantry isn’t the place to learn no matter what Zevran likes to insinuate, but the idea of carrying her mark pulls him up tight and hot. “You’d like that?” It comes out unevenly. She moves against him and he sucks in a breath, closes his eyes for a second. Opens them, hears himself keep going, too loud and awkward, “Er, because it’s another tradition? Or …”  
  
“Shh. No. That was also a joke.” She tilts her face up and meets his eyes with a speculative expression. “Unless you actually want me to.”

“You could. Wherever.” Her eyes are dark in this light, her hair a soft black tangle. He isn’t really thinking, but his mouth keeps talking. “Maybe I could carry around one of your sleeves and make a fool of myself over it like the Orlesian chevaliers. More so, because a Fereldan has to be better at it. Are they removable?”

She chuckles under her breath. “You lent me the shirt. I don’t think so.” She traces fingers down his side. “Turn around?”

He does, reluctant to turn away from her but with that thread of excitement pulling harder.

“And take this off, will you? The whole thing.” She tugs on the back of the shirt he’s still wearing.

He pulls it over his head, feels it ruffle his hair. Once it’s out of the way, she runs her hand up his bare side. Her fingers are chilly, unlike the rest of her against his back.

“Too many choices. Here?” Her lips on his shoulder. “Or here? Maybe here?”

He laughs at first, but his pulse quickens and he tenses as she goes. When she reaches a spot between his shoulder blades, it raises an involuntary shudder. “Oh.”

“Promising,” she says in that same low considering tone. “There, shall I?”

“Yes,” he says into the blanket, trying not to hold his breath, “if you want,” trying to be casual.

She moves away, then back. The warmth of her lips is replaced by the thin cold line of the pen nib and he starts.

“You want this, you have to not move for one second.” Laughter in her voice again.

“Sorry. Tickles.”

* * *

It’s trickier than writing on paper. Just a few runes, but the ink beads up, the lines have to be redrawn slowly, and when Tamar breathes on a line to dry it she feels him shiver despite his efforts not to.

She likes this more than the writing itself, she thinks, every breath and quiver and start he can’t hide; he’s a better open book than her journal—

The lamp flickers where she set it. One more line, and another.

“All right. There.” She sets the pen down, lays her head on his shoulder. “My claim or favor or what-have-you. Prior appropriation. Until the morning, anyway.”

He doesn’t turn over, but takes her hand and kisses it with a focused and lingering intensity that makes her gasp and close her eyes for a minute.

“Maker, I could take some more of that direction now,” he says into her fingers.

The words do the same again. “Oh, come here.” Then quickly, “No, wait, you’ll smear it.”

She pushes herself up, breathes on it again, touches it lightly to be sure it’s dry. She pulls on his arm, and then he turns. “Sorry, I’m ...”

“Alistair. Really no need at all to apologize,” she says, half trying not to laugh, half holding herself back.

“Right, yes, silly me.” His smile is tentative but his eyes are darkened; she can feel the racing pulse under her hands.

“Oh, I don’t know what to ask for,” but then she does. “Show me what you do when you’re alone.”

“What?” His eyes widen. “I don’t ...”

“Come on, do I look like a Chantry sister?” She puts her hand over his. “Do it for me.”

She can see it register on his face that she does want this, and after a moment he acquiesces, reaching down for himself.

She lets out a long breath, watches his face, the play of light across his back and shoulder, the little shifts and hitches in tension.

“Before, did you ever … think of me?” A stupid question, prying, and she immediately wants to take it back, but more than that she wants to hear him say yes.

He laughs a little. “Ever. Well. If you really want to know.”

She runs her hand down his arm, feels it tighten. “Obviously, now.”

“I … they always warned us. I tried not to—”

She wriggles out of the shirt she’s been wearing and presses against him skin to skin. His heart beats fast under her. “Maker,” he says and shudders hard.

She pictures him like this in stolen moments away while she slept or kept watch, remembers the times she couldn’t sleep either, and her own blood surges hot inside. “Go on,” she says.

“Wait. All right.” He speaks in gasps. “The way you walked. The way you fought. How you said my name. What I thought you’d taste like. I thought I’d die if you looked at me like you are.”

Her breath comes as fast and she’s humming from head to toe, like a harmonic has been struck. She slides her other hand down to help herself. “Definitely don’t die. I’m against that.”

“I never thought—oh, Andraste, are you—and then you said, and kissed me—”

She takes this cue to kiss him again.  
  
He shakes and falls into her, head on her chest. She buries her face in his hair and lets him pull her close, smothering her own eventual cry.

* * *

“I keep expecting the lightning bolt,” he says a little later, holding on to her after the lamps have gone out.

“I’d say your Maker’s smiling on me, if anything,” she says. “I do thank him.”

“Well, I’m yours now, whatever happens. You claimed me.”

“We’re each other’s. We can do this.” Then she laughs. “And I think those future Wardens could really learn a lot from this—”

He pulls up his feet. She makes a spluttering noise. “Cold! Joke!”


End file.
